Hermione Granger and the Detritus of the Past
by dadrithiad
Summary: The war is won. Dark wizards are nearly all caught. Unfortunately it's still not enough to save them. But impossible magic can make for second chances. Look, I'm bad at summaries. Harmony.
1. Asphodel and Cedar

**Chapter 1 - Asphodel and Cedar**

 _July, 1999_

Staring over the gravestones, Hermione Granger sighed. The war was won, she thought.

She had lain a conjured wreath of asphodel and almond blossoms atop the graves of her parents.

It was true. The war had ended in the span of five minutes, after a battle and a skirmish. Harry Potter had done the incomprehensible. He had desisted death, and returned it tenfold. Well, perhaps not tenfold. But as much as was necessary to finally end the life, or rather, half-life, of Tom Riddle.

The battles, the running, the hunting, made her parents death feel like it was years and years ago. But really, it was only two years today.

She belatedly felt the warmth of tears trickling down her face, tickling her nose. She sighed again.

The papers had called it a terrorist attack, but she knew better. And the Quibbler had the right of it. A Death Eater attack upon Kings Cross had taken not just the lives of her parents, but many others, muggles and wizards alike.

She'd already said all she could say to them moments ago. And they weren't there, not really. She was expected at the trial, and as she looked at her light copper watch, a gift, from Harry, she knew she'd spent longer here than she should have. Yet, she couldn't bear to leave just yet.

Suddenly, with a glint, then a curling wisp, of blue-white light, a glowing, white horse appeared. "Get to the Ministry." Her heart ran cold.

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Hermione apparated into a dank alleyway behind the Ministry of Magic.

Something was wrong. She smelled something burning, something sickly she did not want to wrap her mind around. Glass, wood, chunks of stone lay in the streets, appearing singed.

She spied Croaker, her fellow Unspeakable. "What happened?!" She cried.

"Rookwood." He muttered, his tone quite gruff, sending another Patronus before speaking again. "He used - he used the blasting curse. The one that was tested, years ago, with added runic power. I don't - I don't fully understand how he's done it, but it had to be that. The chamber - below the Department of Mysteries - Courtroom Ten - that was where the blast was centered. They're saying everything above it was destroyed."

Hermione's brain chose to focus on the massive destruction that would've occurred to everything contained in the Department of Mysteries. Rather than Courtroom Ten. Her mind could not go there.

"Are you _coming_?" Croaker called, sounding annoyed. He was nearly around the corner. She hurried to match his pace.

They rushed into the Ministry, to bedlam and disaster. The Atrium, and its inhabitants had not been left unscathed by the explosion. The fountain was nearly empty of its water, and as Hermione ran, her shoes splashed in the water. The monuments that were erected upon the resurrection of the new Ministry were either upended, or fragmented and strewn about the place. Many of the fireplaces were completely destroyed, but there were some with minor damage, some burning, some unscathed.

There were too many bodies, strewn about. None of them appeared to be stirring. She didn't want to think about the fact that none of them were stirring.

Her eyes continued on to the lifts, which were very obviously not in working order. She knew that if she could get to the Department of Mysteries, she could get anywhere in the Ministry. But she knew Saul had said that it had been, apparently, destroyed…

A cry broke her from her reverie, and she looked down, to see a slight woman, stirring feebly. She didn't recognize her. She assessed her wounds. She raised her wand, a healing charm on her lips-

"Granger! With me!" Croaker's voice rang out above the woman's cries, through the roars of the multitudes of fires, and Hermione's wand lowered a fraction. But she steeled herself, and quickly cast a multitude of healing spells that she hoped would save the woman's life until more help could arrive, and followed behind Saul.

He led her to a door that, at first, seemed new, because she didn't think she'd seen it before, but, at the same time, looked old and disused. As they made their way through the door, Hermione was temporarily dumbfounded by the seemingly endless corridor before her. "What… is this?"

"The Corridor," Croaker muttered. "Unspeakable access only, though during an emergency Aurors can penetrate it as well. You just hold your wand up to the knob, and flick your wand in the shape of an M."

"That's… That's it!?" She cried, and he looked affronted.

"Well you've got to be an Unspeakable or an Auror for it to work! But never mind, we're losing time! Focus on Courtroom Ten!"

Hermione understood, and so she closed her eyes and pictured Courtroom Ten in her mind, or at least as it was the last time she had seen it only days ago. She heard a rumbling sound, punctuated by a whinnying scraping. When the sound stopped, she opened her eyes. Down the hallway there was now a door. A badly singed door, that seemed to be missing a chunk that constituted about a third of it, but a door all the same. She rushed forward with Croaker, afraid of what they would find behind the door.

If the Atrium was a disaster, the Courtroom was destruction.

The towering risers where the Wizengamot would sit were nearly destroyed. Where most of them had stood, there lay stone either in the size of boulders, or smaller chunks, and even, dust. The bodies of those who'd sat in them lay scattered within, and some outside of, the ruins.

The prisoner, somehow still chained where he had sat, was clear across the room, though not much remained of him, as he was missing appendages and most of the chair he was still somewhat chained to was gone.

Croaker had already rushed toward the center of the room, kneeling and muttering incantations over a body that could only be the Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt. She saw Kingsley's fingers twitch. George and Ron Weasley lay mangled and motionless further to the left, and as her eyes continued, she saw a feeble Molly Weasley reaching for Arthur Weasley, who was much too still. She did not see Ginny anywhere, but she knew she was to be present. The trial was, after all, for the wizard that had killed Fred. She saw a mangled body that could only be Fleur. She felt a cloying, choking sob well up in her throat as she examined what was left of her family. She looked past them all, towards the back of the room, and a sigh that she should not have been able to hear drew her attention to the right.

" _Harry!"_ She screamed, her voice full of, to anyone surrounding who was either still alive or conscious, the most unearthly anguish. Time seemed to slow down and speed up, she _felt_ it, as though it were a physical force that was pressing down upon her. She rushed to him.

Her anger and pain felt palpable. The pain she felt at looking upon him in his state felt like a knife slicing through her chest. She felt tears start to well in her eyes, and tried to blink them away.

"Hermione…" He managed, barely. She was wracked with a lone sob, and worried her lower lip between her teeth for a moment.

"I've got to get you to St. Mungo's. Take my hand, I've got to get you up. I'll side-along you." She breathed, starting to move again.

"You can't… Anti-Disapparition jinx." It seemed to be nearly an insurmountable task for him to get his mouth to say what he was trying to say.

"Well, I'll take them down!" She cried indignantly.

"Can't… Not ours. Kingsley tried, before he… You… You know what you need to do," the words fell from his lips, sounding more like a cough or a sigh.

"No!" She shouted, and raised her wand, healing spells falling from her lips with a speed that was nearly inhuman.

"S'not going to work… This wasn't from the blast. Rookwood… I wish it would… You know what you need to do." Harry struggled.

She was weeping in earnest. She focused herself, fixed her wand upon him once more, and cried, "Expelliarmus!" She sobbed as his body was thrown away from her, and a wand of elder flew to her. She caught it. She didn't feel she could rise from her knees, and dragged herself across the rubble to him. She looked into his eyes.

"D'you… D'you think it worked?" Harry whispered, his voice barely a breath.

She sighed. Her hand slipped to his cheek. She avoided a particularly nasty cut near his jawline, but bent down to kiss him.

"I love you," he murmured.

"I-" she began to return his sentiment, but realized the light had left his eyes. Her fingers fell from his face, and reached for his hand. His hand was so still, unmoving. She thought to all the times she'd reach for it and felt his fingers clench tight to hers in her mind, but knew it was some sick dream, some phantom of a movement that was only in her mind, something she'd never actually feel again.

The ground began to shake, and her eyes swam.

"Not Harry." She murmured. Her vision slowly sharpened and became white hot. She felt something swelling within her.

"Not Harry," fell from her lips again, like a prayer.

"Not Harry!" She cried.

She continued shouting her mantra, crazed beyond all belief. The flames began to flicker, and flashed purple. She marveled at the sight, and looked about. She was still repeating her mantra, more quickly and desperate now, as the weight of everything and nothing fell upon her. She felt a profound sense of loss and anguish as her world crumbled around her. But all about, she saw strands, wisps, and slabs of purple, odd bits that didn't make sense. Soft wisps spewing from bodies, yet some bodies with none, slabs that were where the ground once was, and she looked at the great purple fires. It was all so warm and inviting, somehow. She reached out, somehow, to all of it. She looked down at herself, seeing one lone strand, and a wisp as curly as filigree. She thought of Harry, and of asphodel and cedar. She thought her heart was exploding.

"NOT HARRY!" She screamed once more, and then everything turned white.

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 **AN: I chose asphodel because the first resource for "flower meanings" I came across gave its meaning as "My regrets follow you to the grave" - I belatedly remember the trope, but since this is fan fiction, I've kept it.**


	2. Mars, Venus, and Canis Major

**Chapter 2 - Mars, Venus, and Canis Major**

Hermione Granger had a massive headache, and she wasn't quite sure where she was.

She heard the sounds of a forest, but she wasn't quite ready to open her eyes, yet.

She was lying prone on the ground. She attempted to raise her head, which hurt quite a bit. But she opened her eyes and she shifted all the same, crawling into a seated position. She sat for a moment and tried to get a hold on her headache and her confusion. It looked like she was in the Forbidden Forest, but she couldn't imagine how she'd gotten there. There was an anti-disapparition charm at the Ministry - she gasped - the Ministry, Harry…

She was jolted from her thoughts when she heard the approach of hooves.

She turned to her left, and saw a centaur approaching into the clearing. Her breath hitched in her throat, as she knew of the potential danger and their possessive nature when it came to the forest. All she could think to do was to be polite and feign ignorance of her location, and how she got there. She took in the centaur's frame, his red hair and his chestnut body. She wasn't sure if she remembered correctly, but she thought his name might be Ronan.

"Hullo…" She called out unassumingly. "I thought I was in the Forbidden Forest, but I wasn't sure. But, you are… Ronan, so, I must be?"

"Hello. Are you from the school?" He asked plaintively, but with a hint of curiosity. Hermione found it odd and without pretext, which she thought quite strange for a centaur. It was almost straightforward.

"…In a way," she murmured. Obviously she wasn't a student still, but she had been at one point…

He eyed her speculatively. "Well, then. What are you doing in the forest?"

"I-" she began, wanting to explain that she hadn't the foggiest, but she paused as she heard the sounds of more hooves approaching. She turned and she saw a centaur that was completely black; she felt a chill when she realized this was Bane. But as she looked further, she felt a small sense of calm and a tug at her heart, as she watched another, blonde centaur approach. This centaur appeared younger, and she knew him to be Firenze.

"Mars has certainly been bright. _So it has been for ages past, so it is now._ " Ronan remarked to Bane, and gazed up at the sky, but then his brow furrowed, as if confused.

Firenze chimed in. "Yes, but Venus may overtake-"

" _Firenze!_ _What are you doing?_ _Remember, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"_

Ronan spoke next. _I'm sure Firenze thought he was acting for the best," he said in his gloomy voice._

Firenze was more calm than Bane. "Yes we have read what is to come, but the course has changed, not through any action of our own. Venus overtakes Mars."

Hermione couldn't help but sigh. None of this was making any sense. She cast her eyes downward. But Firenze apparently wasn't finished.

"Sirius is rising," he murmured.

Now that _really_ didn't make any sense. It was much too early in the day for that.

She looked up at the centaurs, and her eyes strayed to where their eyes were all trained. "Oh," she mumbled to herself. Was that… Was that a _joke?_

A young man was approaching. She recognized him at once, though he was younger than she had ever seen him, outside of a lone photograph.

"Canis will provide sanctuary for the Cytherean child," Firenze said succinctly. He changed his stance, and began to walk away. Ronan began to follow, and Bane looked like he wasn't quite finished, but he followed all the same.

So it was then that she realized the question wasn't where, or why, but _when._ And certainly, still, _how._

She'd ended a war and ended up unceremoniously dropped into another.

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Sirius stood before her, longer-haired than she'd ever seen him, his wand lit and trained upon her.

"What're you doing out here? It's after hours," He asked her. But then, he eyed her robes speculatively. "Wait, you're not a student are you? What's an Unspeakable doing in the forest?"

She'd forgotten she was wearing her Unspeakable robes. She looked down, they were singed and torn. A right sight she must look, she thought.

"Some sort of experiment gone wrong no doubt!" He cried, half-jokingly.

"Yes, you could say that. Look I…" She paused. She didn't know what to say really. She didn't know what to do, either. She sighed. But she knew what she _could_ do. Might as well.

"Take me to the castle. I need to have a word with Albus Dumbledore." said Hermione in her firmest tone.

It didn't quite work.

"Look, I'm sure you're a nice girl and all, but what do I look like taking a random person to the headmaster?" She thought for a moment, and realized what she should do.

"Look, I have… Credentials. Bring them to him, or bring me to the gates and bring him to me." She said plainly. He eyed her speculatively for a moment. He seemed to be warring with himself.

"All right, let's go, then," He said baldly, and took off without waiting for her to follow.

They wound their way through the trees and out of the forest. As they trekked she realized they were going quite a roundabout way, but she had told him to take her to the gates, after all. As they finally neared the gates, he stopped short of them, and seemed to be hesitating again. She huffed and kept moving. She approached the gates, and to her surprise, they opened for her immediately. She knew she hadn't even been born yet in this time period, but didn't stop to wonder further on what that meant.

Sirius' face was full of shock. "The gates - they're locked to anyone but students. And I know you're not a student here."

"Well I was at some point - I'm past school age." Hermione said plainly. She honestly had no clue why the gates had let her in.

"You don't look it. And you can't be that much older than me - I'd recognized you. Regardless, if you're past school age, it shouldn't have let you in." Sirius' confusion was only growing.

"Perhaps it's my credentials," Hermione murmured with a smirk.

She strode through the grounds and to the doors which also opened for her without protest. She decided to see just how far she could get. She walked briskly through the school until she met the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.

"Cockroach Cluster… Sherbet Lemon… Chocolate Frog… Fizzing Whizzbee-" the gargoyle jumped, and she was in. Up the stairs and to the door. She felt the urge to knock though she knew he'd always known she was there in the past. She wondered if he'd know her now.

"Enter," Dumbledore called.

Hermione opened the door and strode in. Sirius was still trailing behind her, she'd honestly forgotten about him until now.

"Hello sir," she began. "You may not know me, or should I say, you may not know me yet. I'll be honest, I can't tell you what I'm doing here, or how I got here. I have more than a few things to tell you, and I must say they're fantastic. They may be difficult to believe, even for you. So I'm going to show you something in good faith in the hopes that it bolsters what I need to tell you," she looked up at the headmaster. His face betrayed nothing.

She took out the Elder wand and brandished it. And it was then that she saw something she'd never seen on the decidedly unflappable headmaster before.

He pulled his own wand from his robes and held it up.

Shock.

 **AN: It's been a rough week and I really should be working on this huge project for work, but I'm kind of burnt out on it and this story was swirling around in my head. I had a hard time transitioning from the centaur conversation to Sirius's introduction, too, so that took a bit.**

 **It also took me an embarrassing bit of time to figure out how to upload a new chapter…**

 **I figured out the difference between the Anti-Apparition Charm and the Anti-Disapparition Jinx. Is that confusing to anyone else? Honestly all this time I thought it was one spell that prevented the lot of it. So I've changed the language in this chapter and have changed or will change the language in the last.**

 **Centaur speak is kind of hard, hope this was all right. I borrowed generally from the passage from PS, Chapter 15, The Forbidden Forest. Anything that was word for word is italicized.**


	3. Of Prophecies Fulfilled

**Chapter Three - Of Prophecies Fulfilled**

Dumbledore was speechless.

They were interrupted by a whinnying chime. Dumbledore raised his wand and someone could be heard ambling up the steps. Dumbledore said, "Enter," as a knock rang out.

It was Minerva McGonagall, James Potter and Remus Lupin.

Hermione thought her eyes might have bugged out of her head. The sight of Remus… Younger than she'd ever seen him, but she still recognized him. But James… It could only be James, because her heart lurched at the sight of Harry's double.

"Albus… I have grave news. Mister Potter and Mister Lupin came to find me shortly after dinner. Peter Pettigrew is missing."

"Well good riddance!" Hermione cried. Five sets of eyes turned on her at once. She had the sense to look embarrassed. "That… That came out wrong."

James was eying Hermione both curiously and angrily, but chose that moment to chime in. "Headmaster, we were in the common room playing Exploding Snap, Peter and I. Remus was doing his rounds. Peter went for the toilet, and never came back. We can't find him anywhere."

"I've asked the elves to attempt to locate him. They cannot find him." McGonagall said, a small tremor in her voice.

Dumbledore looked to a device on one of the many spindly tables. He stepped over to it and picket it up. He began moving his wand in sharp staccatos the likes of which Hermione had never seen before. "No, he is certainly not in the castle…" Dumbledore murmured. The color it emitted must have indicated a negative.

"And he's not… Up to no good, either." A message, to Sirius, from James. Sirius' eyes widened.

"That's debatable," Hermione grumbled. "But no, not in the sense you meant, I'm sure you're right."

"Have you got an issue?" James' eyes narrowed, starting in on Hermione.

Hermione wanted to be childish for a moment and tell him that no, she didn't have a problem, but that he would in about two years or so if she was right about the time period. But she refrained. Not a small part of this was because of the way her heart lurched again at the sight of his face, so like Harry's. She huffed. "I don't know anything about why he's disappeared at the moment, but, Headmaster, part of what I wanted to talk to you about does relate to him."

"What's an Unspeakable got to do with Peter!?" James cried.

"I don't think she's _really_ an Unspeakable. Those robes look tattered and she looks much too young anyway." Sirius chimed in.

"Then what's she doing here?" James spat out.

"Silence," Dumbledore said, his tone soft, yet authoritative. He eyed a sort of magical device on one of the spindly tables in the corner of the room. Hermione realized it was emitting a soft hum. "Please, gentlemen, return to your common room at once."

Sirius and James looked like they wanted to argue, but Remus seized them by the arms and led them from the room.

"Headmaster… You've no idea how wonderful it is to see you again," Hermione began.

The headmaster had approached the device that was emitting the hum. He was waving his wand in figure eights, and each downward pass tapped the device. A gentle beam of light curled slowly from the device, meandering its way between Minerva and Hermione, linking itself between them. Hermione almost thought she heard a soft, curious, 'Hmm…" from Dumbledore, but she couldn't be sure. She did notice Minerva eyed it speculatively.

"Oh? I must admit I find that intriguing, as I don't recall meeting you before." His face twisted into a tiny, playful smirk, and his eyes shone with mirth.

Hermione huffed, both at herself, for causing more confusion, and at not knowing what the device was actually doing and what the light signified. "Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. I should start at the beginning."

"But first, tea?" The Headmaster queried.

The Headmaster called for an elf, giving a request for tea.

Hermione's eyes had narrowed against her better judgment, but she sat to drink her tea all the same.

After a few sips, Hermione began. "Right, well I might as well get on with it. My… My name is Hermione Granger. I don't even know how to begin really. I know where I am, but I don't know exactly _when_ I am. I knew you very well, Headmaster, and you as well, Professor, and I know who those boys were - two I'd say I knew rather well, and one I'd say I never met. That's not to say anything of Peter." Professor McGonagall's eyebrows rose a bit at that. "But… All of them are dead… In my time."

"Your time?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Yes, as far as I can tell it's sometime in the future. I've met Sirius and Remus before, and… And Peter. But they were much older. I never met James. He… Well… Let me start from the beginning."

And she told a tale of meeting a formidable, no-nonsense witch, of wonder, then, of meeting a boy on a train, of the books she'd come across telling her of the boy's history. She told a tale of danger, adventure, and victory. Of prophecies fulfilled.

"And so… The war was won?" Dumbledore asked. There were more questions in his eyes, but this was the only one he voiced.

"Yes," Hermione murmured, with a smile devoid of any emotion. "Yes, it was. And we had one good year. A hard one, but good none the less."

"But… _Then_ …" The Headmaster murmured. Hermione was only half listening. A plan was forming in her mind. She realized she needed to answer.

"Tragedy struck. As it always does. A great tragedy, a great personal tragedy. Everyone is gone, nearly. My parents were long gone. And I never had anyone else. My family… But my… My magical family… Tragedy struck them too. Everyone is gone. Harry… Then, everything went white. And now, here I am." Her sentences were short and half broken as the plan continued to form in her mind.

"Croaker! Saul Croaker…" Hermione cried suddenly. Minerva stiffened at the mention. "Where is he, what does he do, in this time? Is he in the Department of Mysteries?"

It was Minerva who answered. "Yes, he does in fact."

Hermione knew this could be better discussed with him. She knew the limitations of time such that the headmaster and the professor did, and knew they would decry the plan forming in her mind.

"He'll know what to… What to do, with me. I'll need to go see him first. He'll be able to make sense of this."

The headmaster looked ready to protest, but it was the professor who spoke. She somehow managed to look stern and comforting at the same time. "Go, but return. My door is always open to you."

"I'm sure she knows how to find it, Minerva," The headmaster chimed in, eyes twinkling.

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"Well. No snake this time," Hermione muttered to herself. Her flight from the castle had been short, and anticlimactic after Minerva's sentiment. She trudged deeper into the forest, and found a young thestral. The thestral peered at her curiously. She thought she might recognize this very thestral from her research in the Department of Mysteries - the age would fit, but she couldn't be sure. She addressed the thestral. "I don't suppose you'd give me a ride?" It approached, and dipped its head.

And that was how she rode a thestral to The Three Broomsticks.

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Minerva had left the Headmaster's office, and was in a lone corridor that didn't appear to exist, to anyone that wasn't a part of Hogwarts staff. She approached the book, raised her wand, and murmured the name. The pages fluttered and landed. The year at the top of the page shone 1991.

The name was very much green, and Minerva wasn't sure what to think of that. So the girl was very much here, not her younger self. Her younger self would need a visit from her in 1991. Meaning, she wasn't even born yet. Would she still be? The green seemed to indicate she would be, though of course she'd only ever thought of the colors of the ink indicated whether a student was alive, or not. She'd never considered what it meant for students who hadn't been born yet. She frowned at herself for never even considering to look or think that far ahead. She thought of the girl who'd just left and her thoughts swam.

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 **AN: What's this… Over a year later? Well, I'm sorry. I hope the eleven of you that followed this are happy to see an update, however delayed.**

 **On another note, I'm not good with time, or dates. I hope my math is right. I think it is, anyway. It's supposed to be Seventh year for James, Sirius, Remus, and Lily.**


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